Despite being wildly over-represented in Congress considering their pint-sized population and their woeful insignificance to all but the maple syrup, macrame' plant-hanger and lib-tard industries, it looks like Vermonters would like to secede. A collection of native moon-bats has formed the ""left-libertarian, anti-big government, anti-empire, antiwar,...small is beautiful" Second Vermont Republic with plans to unhook the Green Mountain State from the tenous tether to sanity maintained by its inclusion in our 50 states.

You see, Vermont, like Texas (I bet you never thought you would see those three words strung together), was an independent republic before it ever became our 14th state. Originally a French possession, Vermont was the booby prize awarded to the British in 1763 for their victory in the French and Indian War. From 1777 to 1791 Vermont was a power unto itself led by it's fierce militia. Called The Green Mountain Boys, their army was comprised of itinerant furniture makers including Ethan Allen and his crafty young recruits, Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders.

After more than two centuries of statehood, however, the hearts of Vermont's Ben & Jerry's-swilling populace was broken by Barack Obama. The secessionist party's gubernatorial candidate is currently the owner of Radio Free Vermont and states the case for those northeasterners desirous of opting out of the U.S. of A.:

"People in Vermont in general are very antiwar, and all their faith was in Obama to end the wars. I ask people, 'Did you get the change you wanted?' They can't even look you in the eyes. We live in a nation that is asleep at the wheel and where the hearts are growing cold like ice."

"The U.S. government, they said, was an immoral enterprise - engaged in imperial wars, propping up corrupt bankers and supersized corporations, crushing small businessmen, plundering the tax-base for corporate welfare, snooping on the private lives of citizens - and they wanted no more part of it."

" (they can do so) with a tax structure reformed to incentivize small business and industry (and to make life difficult for large out-of-state corporations). By 2020, they foresee Vermont producing at least 75% of its own electricity and heat, using wind-, solar-, biomass- and hydro-power....(furthermore they believe that) current U.S. law enables multinational corporations to abuse Vermont as a "resource colony." Citing a 2008 study by the University of Vermont, Wagner says the state stands to gain over $1 billion a year in revenue by taxing equitably the corporate behemoths that exploit Vermont's "commons," which includes everything from the state's groundwater, surface water, wildlife and forests, to the public spectrum of the airwaves.